Page:The lady or the tiger and other stories, Stockton (Scribner's 1897 ed).djvu/210

No. 8.

From a hog-and-cattle reporter on a morning paper, who has just had his hair cut by a barber whose father fell off a wire-bridge in the early part of 1867, to a gardener, who has written to him that a tortoise-shell cat, belonging to the widow of a stage-manager, has dug up a bed of calceolarias, the seed of which had been sent him by the cashier of a monkey-wrench factory, which had been set on fire by a one-armed tramp, whose mother had been a sempstress in the family of a Hicksite Quaker.

New York, Jan. 2, '77.

Dear Sir: In an immense metropolis like this, where scenes of woe and sorrow meet my pitying eye at every glance, and where the living creatures, the observation and consideration of which give me the means of maintenance, are, always, if deemed in a proper physical condition, destined to an early grave, I can only afford a few minutes to condole with you on the loss you so feelingly announce. These minutes I now have given.

Very truly yours,

HENRY DAWSON.

No. 9.

From the wife of a farmer, who, having sewed rags enough to make a carpet, is in doubt whether to sell the rags, and with the money buy a mince-meat chopper and two cochin-china hens of an old lady, who, having been afflicted with varicose veins, has determined to send her nephew, who has been working for a pump-maker in the neighboring village, but who